The truth about Cali Stolder
by Somebody.smileyface
Summary: After S.H.I.E.L.D rescue a girl from the clutches of a terrorist organisation, she joins the Avengers and aids them in their fight against Loki. However secrets are unveiled, and after these revelations, will they accept her? Or will they destroy her? Starts just before Avengers Assemble.
1. Chapter 1

**Okay, so before we begin, I would like to say, and I'm only going to say this once so just know that this applies to the whole of this story, I do not own anything that you may recognise, the only thing I do own is my OC, Cali, and some parts of this storyline. The rest belongs to Marvel. So now that's out of the way, enjoy the story!**

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_"Cali Stolder did not have a good life. Left on the streets of London to die at the age of 14 with a serious case of amnesia she was moved into a foster home in a completely different country, forced to accustom to her new life. It was less than a year later that her family was murdered and she was taken from her bedroom while she slept. A world wide search was issued, but after four years, the investigation into the disappearance of the 15 year old has now come to a close as detectives proclaim the victim as dead. The killer still remains at large and we ask that everybody watches out, the whole nation mourns the loss of this very unfortunate, lovely young woman."_

With that the tv exploded, the loud shatter of glass resounded around the room, shards flew everywhere, bouncing of the hard grey concrete walls, some of them embedding themselves into the flesh of the girl sitting hugging her bony knees in the middle of the room.

There was a heavy booming noise before the door burst open, showering her with more glass. A man walked into the holding cell, glass crunching under his heavy boots as he moved cautiously towards her. He crouched down where she was sitting and tried to peer through her lank black greasy hair.

Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut and bruises littered her angular defined face, made even sharper by lack of food. Her whole body was quite skeletal really, her long limbs were almost as thin as chair legs. Her hair, matted and grimy hung to what looked like the back of her knees, parts were singed and huge chunks were missing in places.

Material that could be only described as rags hung off her bony figure, a filthy ratty shirt hung to her thighs while ripped and charred shin length bottoms hung off of her barely there waist.

She was trembling like crazy, every inch of her body spasming constantly, her knees knocked together ruthlessly while her neck barely held her head up. Blood slowly pooled out on the grimy floor around her, running like waterfalls from the pierced flesh.

The man put a gloved hand gently on her arm and her eyes snapped open in terror and shock, revealing shocking emerald green eyes. They stared at each other for a moment before the girl gasped and violently jerked away from him.

Too weak to hold herself up she just flopped back and hit her head on the floor. She stared right into the mans eyes before opening her mouth with evident struggle.

"I'm s-o sor-ry" she breathed, her voice cracking in places before she managed to bury her head in her hands. Before the man could question her, the whole room started to shake violently. The glass on the floor rattled and chimed, creating a deafening noise before all shards started to rise up into he air and smash up into even more pieces.

Every time a piece hit another a mini explosion would occur, creating a sharp scraping noise and purple and white light exploded from the pieces. The explosions gradually got bigger and eventually some light hit the man on the arm and he cried out in pain. His arm had turned red raw with ice blue undertones and he grabbed a leather jacket from his belt and slung it on his shoulders before turning around again.

The chaos around them got more and more dangerous with each passing second. The man saw the light and shards closing in on them and leaped on top of the girl, shielding her from the shards. he felt them getting closer and closer before they suddenly stopped in the air, the light disappeared and the glass dropped out of mid air and clattered around them. He looked at the girl to see she was unconscious with tears still streaming down her face.

The man dropped down on his knees with an oomph, rubbing his forehead, he kneeled and stared into space before standing up again after a while, picking up a bow and set of modified arrows and placing it on his back, before bending down again and lifting the girl from the concrete floor. He strode out of the building carrying the girl, her head lolling and limbs flopping.

He got her into the waiting black helicopter outside and lay her down gently on a medical bed.

"Ok, next stop, S.H.E.I.L.D headquarters." said the man into an earpiece, hopping into the pilot seat.

"Roger that, Barton. You got the girl?"

"She's in the back there, what do I do with her?" Barton smirked.

"Take her directly to the holding cell where Coulson will stay with her. Afterwards i need you to report back to Hangar 3. we need you to keep an eye on the tesseract."

"Roger that sir" he replied and took off.

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**Hi! i hope you enjoyed the start of this story! If you did, leave a review... If you didn't... Leave a review anyway to let me know what I did wrong. Thank you so so much for reading this, again hope you enjoyed it and hope to see you next time... if you have any questions you can private message me, or just ask it as a review, so yeah! Thank you, goodbye for now!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey guys! Here's the next chapter, I hope you enjoy it. Recently I made some edits to it and something went wrong somewhere, I'd just like to say a huge thank you to Evaline101 who told me about the problem so I could fix it. Honestly, if there's some thing wrong, just tell me and I'll sort it out as soon as possible. So I'll let you all get on with it then, goodbye for now :)**

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Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. As I started to regain consciousness I heard a steady beeping noise beside me. I tried to open my eyes but they felt glued together and when I tried to move my limbs I found that I couldn't, they felt heavy like lead- My whole body felt heavy, I couldn't move at all.

As I started to gain focus on the world around me I heard a female voice beside me saying "She is waking up, she's just drained though. She is doing surprisingly well though, considering the severity of the injuries on her body. I suppose using that much power got rid of the last of her energy."

"How long till she's up and about?" Replied a male voice.

"I'd say she's awake right now, according to these spikes in her energy. We really need to get her energy levels up though."

"Miss Stolder?" the male voice came from right next to me. "Cali? Can you hear me?" How did he know my name? I started to panic, my breath coming in short light bursts. My whole body started to shake and my head felt light, then as if it was closing in on my brain. The pulse monitors were going crazy next to me and the constant beeping only made it worse.

Suddenly the plug was pulled on the monitors and a calming hand pressed against my shoulder. "Shhhhhh. It's ok. Were not going to hurt you, our team rescued from that holding cell." Said the man soothingly "You're safe now. Listen-" I had now calmed down considerably. "Do you think you can open your eyes for me?"

I tried desperately to open them, my eyelids still felt heavy but this time they twitched. "Good girl, you're nearly there. I imagined little hands forcing them open in my mind and surprisingly it worked, they slowly opened, the bright light hurt a lot though and I started blinking and squeezing them open and shut.

Eventually the pain subsided and I looked around, my stare wide, wild and curious. To my right I saw the man who had been speaking to me. He was superbly calm and friendly looking, he had kind eyes, creased with laughter lines, and had a wide smile plastered on his face. He was dressed smartly in a suit and gripped a tray of food in his hand.

"You're okay?" He said.

"Will be" I whispered, not able to get my voice out properly. He smiled. "How long have I been out for?"

"8 days." He chuckled at my shock. "Do you think you could stomach this food?" I looked down to see him holding something greasy in a polystyrene box. It looked like strips of meat with salad in a wrap of some sort of bread, but the meat was severely discoloured and dripped grease, and the salad, well it didn't look good.

"What is that?" I whispered in disgust. And my face must have showed it all because he laughed and took the plate of food away.

"This is Shawarma. You don't have to eat it if you don't want to, I can have an agent bring in some other food, soup maybe?"

"Yes please. if its not any trouble" He grinned at me and shook his head before standing up and walking out I tried to move my arms to help me sit up but it was a big struggle and I had next to no energy so my arms just didn't move properly, they lifted a bit and then my body gave up on them and they flopped back down uselessly. I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the man to come back in.

After about 20 minutes he came back into the room, holding a cup with a straw. I thought he said he was getting me soup! He must have seen my confused expression because he explained.

"I thought the soup would be easier to eat this way, it's just plain tomato I'm afraid."

"I've had nothing but stale bread occasionally for the past 6 years, I'm sure ill survive with soup for one day" I smiled weakly before looking down at my useless body. I wasn't too happy about being stuck here with unfamiliar people with no way of moving around, but this man seemed nice and understanding. I looked up and smiled shyly before asking him for help. "I can't get up on my own" I whispered.

He stuck the cup down on the bedside table before putting his hands under my arms and putting his shoulder under my head and then he dragged my body into a sitting position. He left his shoulder under my head before he stacked up a load of pillows behind me and then let me rest on them.

"Do you mind needles?" He asked concernedly reaching for something inside his suit pocket.

"No, what is that?" I asked suspiciously. I wasn't afraid of needles, but I was afraid of strange substances that could do something to me.

"Nothing to be scared of" He said looking up at me, "It's an energy boosting shot, developed by the scientists in S.H.I.E.L.D and Tony Stark," He poured the contents of the bottle into a syringe. "You should have some energy to move at least when we give it to you." He added while positioning it over my arm. He slid the needle into my skin and injected the substance. I felt it working immediately and my whole body felt rejuvenated and alive for the first time in 6 years.

"It actually worked!" I laughed. I grinned at him "So who exactly are you?" I wasn't scared of him anymore, he'd proved that he was nice and extremely trustworthy. Anyone else? Not so much. person who rescued me could be in with a chance. People said I was too trusting sometimes, maybe thats what got me kidnapped in the first place.

"My names Phil Coulson, I'm and agent of S.H.I.E.L.D, otherwise known as the strategic homeland intervention, enforcements and logistics division."

"I'll just call it S.H.I.E.L.D then shall I?" I grinned.

"Everyone else does" Phil replied with a smile of his own. "Why don't you eat your lunch and then we can go find you some nicer clothes" He said looking at my hospital gown and then at my ratty 'clothes' beside me. "The staff tried to have them cleaned, but it didn't do them much good."

"That's fine. Can I actually eat as we go. I can't say I really want to be here?" I questioned him. He just shrugged in acceptance and went to get a dressing gown off the back of the door while I ripped the many tubes out my arms. I sat up and got out of bed, a bit shaky on my legs at first but I soon got used to it and took the gown off of Phil and put it on. I grabbed my soup and we both walked out of the door.

I was going to try to remember the route we took, but after strolling down thousands of identical corridors while slurping my soup I gave up and enjoyed nosing into the rooms we passed before we came to a room full of wardrobes and drawers.

Phil went over to a set of drawers in the far right corner of the room before rifling through the similar clothing items in the top drawer. He eventually pulled out a dark grey shirt and a pair of black sports leggings.

"Umm, underwear is in that drawer, he said pointing to a set on the left of the room. I'll be just outside, knock when you're done" He said before walking out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

I awkwardly stood there before walking over to the set of drawers and getting a sports bra and a pair of girls boxer short type things, I looked in the next drawer and found socks, I chose a pair of black ankle socks. I went back to the centre of the room and changed into the clothes.

I looked into the mirror. Big mistake, I looked like hell. My skin was pale and my cheeks gaunt, my long black hair was greasy and matted and my limbs looked frail and barely there. My clothes looked alright though, the pants were skin tight and knee length. The shirt was oversized and displayed a huge emblem on the front. It would have to do. I went back to the door and knocked on it.

"Much better!" Phil exclaimed as he walked back in. He walked over to a plain wall and pulled out a hidden drawer in the wall, he tossed me a pair of black trainers and an earpiece. I put them both on and we walked out together. Soon we found ourselves at a bathroom.

Phil ushered me in and I found myself a cubicle and relieved myself. I flushed and went over to the sink to wash my hands. On seeing my reflection again I gasped in horror, though I decided to just fuck it and stick my whole head under the tap. I got the bar soap, rubbed it all through my hair and rinsed it out.

After I was done rinsing it I took my head out the sink, ran my fingers through it to get rid of some of the cots and walked over to the hand dryer, sitting underneath it. Phil must have been worried because he popped his head round the door after about 8 minutes of drying my hair. He laughed.

"Come on" He chuckled, grinning in mirth. "We need to be somewhere." Then he gripped my wrist and tugged me out of the room. After what felt like another 10,000 miles of walking we reached a big room that looked very modern and sciency.

On seeing us, a man that stood previously on a balcony high above their heads dropped down and landed in a crouch before us. He quickly stood up and shook Phil's hand, nodding to me after doing so.

"Coulson." He smirked. "And Cali? If I'm not mistaken" I nodded back, slightly scared that he knew my name.

"Cali, this is the man who rescued you from that place, Agent Clint Barton… Also known as Hawkeye. How's the tesseract looking?"

"It's been doing good until about 2 hours ago. Recently it's been starting to spike, nothing to be too concerned about though so far. Selvig knows more, just gone to the bathroom though."

"Ok may as well have a look around while we wait th-" He was cut off by a huge sharp noise that came from a glowing blue cube in the centre of the room as a few crackles of what looked like electricity and blue jets of light exploded from it.

"Shut it down now!" Phil roared. A number of the other agents tried to pull plugs and messed with buttons everywhere. It wouldn't stop however. I stared intently and flicked my hand slightly towards it, I felt the familiar flow of energy entering my body and warming my insides.

The cube started to calm slightly so I broke the connection, cutting off the flow and felt a small wave of exhaustion crash into me, but I shook it off, I couldn't let my weakness get the best of me now.

Everything stilled, agents stopping and staring fearfully at it. Selvig came over to us and had a whispered conversation with Phil, who glanced at me knowingly before nodding to Selvig, who walked hurriedly away, and raising a shaky hand to his earpiece.

"Director Fury," he said. "We need you back at base…" He stopped, listening to the person at the other end. "Because the tesseract is… playing up…" He stopped again "Yes, right away sir" and took his hand away. "Start the evac, we need all floors cleared as soon as possible!" He shouted, sending the whole room into a frenzy.

"Come with me" Phil murmured in my ear. "Barton, watch the tesseract." We both left and got into an elevator that took us straight up to the 1st floor. We stepped out of the building just in time for a helicopter to appear and land right in front of us.

Out of the helicopter appeared a very intimidating black man with an eyepatch and a woman wearing a skintight navy blue catsuit. They both strode over to us, the man giving me a calculating glare with his one eye.

"How bad is it?" He said, acknowledging me with a nod and turning back to Phil, who glanced at me before looking back to the others.

"That's the problem sir. We don't know." He said concernedly before turning back into the building gesturing to me to follow them. I trailed after the three of them, wondering what I was supposed to be there for. Nobody but Phil and Barton had uttered a single word to me since I had been awake. I was feeling a bit lonely to be honest.

After much walking we once again reached the room with the cube from earlier why couldn't I have just stayed here? I'm not going to lie, i was starting to feel really tired and weak again. That's what happens when I use my powers.

"Dr. Selvig read an energy surge from the tesseract four hours ago." Phil said darkly, stopping and looking up at the duo.

"NASA didn't authorise Selvig to test phase." The other man said angrily.

"He wasn't testing it, he wasn't even in the room. Spontaneous advancement."

"It just turned itself on?" The woman asked, incredulous.

"What are the energy levels now?" The man cut across her.

"Climbing. When Selvig couldn't shut it down, we ordered the evac." So Phil was keeping quiet about the energy sucking incident. I know he knew it was me who stopped the cube. He looked at me and shook his head slightly, warning me.

"How long to get everyone out?"

"Campus should be clear in the next half hour."

"Do better." He said before he and the woman walked away together. Shaking my head I walked after Phil, who was on his way down another corridor.

"Who was that?" I asked.

"That was Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D, and Maria Hill, second in command. The Tesseract, the blue cube, is about to blow this whole place to smithereens and the evacuation isn't going fast enough. Is there any way you could slow it down- get everyone out in time?"

"Theres not a lot. I can try and hold off the energy but I can't last forever. I have a kind of energy loss problem."

"Well… When the situation goes critical I may need you to do just that. It wont be dangerous to your life will it?"

"Holding the energy in one place? No, I will just pass out once I've held it for too long. Transferring energy, like a bolt of lightning for example, into another place has no effect at all. However, if I take in too much energy I can explode and if I give out my own I die. I can take it off of other people and give mine to other people but both options lead to either their or my death."

"So technically you could save somebody life, heal them."

"Well yes, but at the cost of my own."

"Then make sure you never do that. Not for anyone."

"Ok. So what do we do now?"

"Well we need to get everyone out as fast as possible. Get them to leave stuff behind if we have to-" He stopped, putting his hand to his earpiece. "Apart from phase 2 apparently."

"I can mess with the comms systems. Hang on a second." I located all systems in my head and connected them to Phil's earpiece. "Go on, say what you want to say" I told him, keeping a steady concentration.

"This is Agent Coulson, level 8. Everybody leave your stuff and get out. I repeat leave everything and get out." I stopped the connection.

"What about phase 2? You said-"

"That's where we're going, come on we need to hurry" We almost power walked down the endless maze of metal corridors until we reached a huge room filled with wooden crates.

"You expect us to get… All of these… By ourselves?"

"We have a truck. We just need to get them all in there. Now I know you don't even know the half of the powers you actually have, and I believe telekinesis is one of them."

"Telekinesis?"

"Moving things with ones mind. Agent Barton told me about the TV in your cell" I sucked in a sharp gasp as painful memories came back to me. He rubbed my shoulder understandingly before carrying on "That was no electrical fault, and the shards? I don't think it was just energy moving them."

"Well…" I stopped, thinking over the possibilities, there seemed to be no way it way even possible, no trace of an incident in any of my memories indicated that I could do this. Not one- apart from this morning. I thought to use it to open my eyes, I didn't even know it existed then! "Even if I did have it… How would I use it?"

"Think about it. If you wanted to use it, what would you do?"

I thought about it. How did I do it earlier? My subconscious must have had some part of it but I suppose I just… Imagined it happening. I bit my lip, turning to the boxes and staring at them, willing them to lift up. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Unless… I raised my arm imagining a force of some kind coming out of my hand and lifting the box closest to my right.

A burst of swirling blue and red misty light appeared in my hand and snaked its way over to the box, lifting it off the floor. Grinning happily I moved my hand and the box followed. I let out a joyful laugh before remembering what we were actually doing here. I raised my other hand and raised all the other boxes.

Before long I was fitting the last box into the truck with much effort. It appears I don't have enough energy to do telekinesis either as I dropped to my knees as the familiar wave of exhaustion hit me. This time I couldn't get up, I was almost spent and I didn't know if I had enough energy to hold off the tesseracts energy when the place blew. Suddenly the facility started to rumble as the whole place shook.

I searched for the energy signal on the lower floors to find a big bundle closer, and more dangerous than I thought and immediately tried to plug it. I felt it stop combusting but it was wild and kept pushing and thrashing against the barrier I had made around it.

Phil came running into the room followed by a few important looking agents all carrying metal briefcases. He threw his cases at another agent before stopping when he reached me and hoisting me to my feet.

"What is it?" He murmured worriedly, almost dragging me through the corridors.

"It's happened, I'm holding it back now." I wheezed exhaustedly. "We have to get out though, I cant hold it much longer." Waves of fatigue rolled over me, each one bigger than the last and I felt my control slipping.

The building began to shake even more and we all fell down the staircase we were going down, many cases scattering. Everybody moved to pick them up.

"No! leave it!" Phil roared and grabbed me again, this time carrying me and running the both of us out of there. He jumped into a S.H.I.E.L.D van and sat me on the seat next to him. The van took off and I felt my energy almost give out.

"Phil!" I whimpered.

"It's ok." He whispered, rubbing my shoulder. He put his hand to his earpiece "You're clear, sir! You need to go!" We saw Fury run out of the facility. "Ok, let go." He whispered. I did and suddenly there was a huge explosion. First the floor beneath the helicopter caved in, Fury only just getting out in time.

A huge shockwave of energy extended from the building and hit us, jolting the van. Everything stilled for a second, there was nothing happening until the entire facility suddenly swallowed into itself.

I felt a hot wet tear run down my cheek before I buried my face into Phil's shoulder. He wrapped his arm around mine, rubbing my arm soothingly. In the distance a helicopter caught on fire. Phil pressed a button on his walkie talkie.

"Director?" He looked down at me worriedly. "Director Fury, do you copy?"

"The Tesseract is with the hostile force. I have men down. Hill?" Fury's voice crackled through. There was a brief silence.

"A lot of men still under, don't know how many survivors." Hill answered tiredly.

"Sound the general call. I want every living soul not working rescue looking for that brief case."

"Roger that"

"Coulson, get back to base. This is a level 7. As of right now we are at war." Phil waited a beat, biting his lip.

"What do we do?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Why hello there! I am aware that it has been... A while since the last chapter, but i've recently been inspired to carry on with this story so here's the new chapter. I can't wait till we get to the real action (basically meeting the rest of the avengers) because don't we all just love meeting new people? Ok no? Do you just want to read the chapter? Oh alright, go ahead, enjoy!**

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I was awoken by Phil in the early hours of the morning by him shaking my shoulder gently.

"Cali. Cali, come on we're here now." He mumbled.

"We're where?" I yawned, opening my eyes groggily and laying still for a moment until everything came into focus.

"New York, on something called the Helicarrier, S.H.I.E.L.D's latest headquarters. We need to wait around for a bit so I'm going to show you around until we get our next orders from Director Fury."

"Can we get some food first?" I pleaded, my stomach growling. That cube had really took it out of me, and but a day after being rescued too!

"There's a burger king not far from here, will that be sufficient?"

"Yep!" I huffed, sitting up and getting out of the car, stretching and waiting for him to follow, taking note of our surroundings. we seemed to be in some sort of underground car park. There must have been over 500 cars parked here, most of them black with the S.H.I.E.L.D emblem slapped on the sides.

"Over here." He got out and motioned for me to follow him through the maze of cars until we got to a bright red corvette which he patted lovingly before hopping into the drivers seat. "This is Lola. Beautiful, isn't she?"

"I guess… You certainly seem to think so." I answered with a smirk, sliding into the passenger seat.`

"Ah, she's full of many secrets."

"Like?"

"Well, for one," he grinned and pushed a few buttons. A loud whirring noise forced its way into their ears and the car started to rise into the air "This."

"What?" I shrieked "How can it fly? Helicopters can fly, airplanes can fly, cars, however, cannot fly!"

"People fly these days, a flying car is no big deal."

"People fly?!" I squeaked, I couldn't remember much from before my capture, the furthest memory being the year I spent in foster care before they took me, but I think I would have remembered this. or at least seen it on the news the few times they let me watch it.

"Iron Man." He explained before realising it really didn't tell me anything. "Tony stark?" I shook my head, though the name did seem kind of familiar. "You really are behind on the times, you'd probably get on with the captain."

"The What?"

"Captain America? No?" He gasped, shocked that I didn't know who this was. "Captain America is a 1940's superhero, he sacrificed himself to save New York from Hydra in the second world war by crashing a bomber plane into the sea, unfortunately he went down with it. He was thought to be dead until not long ago when he was thawed out of the ice and revealed to be alive. It's safe to say that after a 70 year nap he's pretty behind on the times as well." He told her excitedly.

"Awwwwww, are you a fan?" I joked, watching him turn red. "Seriously though, I cant remember any of this. Is it important?"

"It depends. Do you want to help win this war, be at… Say, the metaphorical frontline?"

"Ummm… Yes. I would."

"I'll talk to Fury then. I'll need to fill you in on quite a lot though. Here." He handed me a tablet displaying several people's pictures "Have a look through these." I looked at the title, the Avengers Initiative, this looked exciting.

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Several hours later I sat on a set of stairs behind Phil as I watched him phone one of the agents I had read about earlier. I didn't tell him this but at first I had a feeling this idea of getting a bunch of superheroes together was going to end badly. He seemed to believe it would work though so I did too. The main thing I had learnt though is that I had missed out on a lot. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot-

"You're at 114 Solenski Plaza, 3rd floor. We have an F22 exactly 8 miles out. Put the woman on the phone or I will blow up the block before you can make the lobby." I was shocked off my train of thought by Phil who had finally got though to Agent Romanoff, I gave him an odd look which he returned with a small smile before carrying on "We need you to come in."

"Are you kidding? I'm working!" Came the muffled reply from the end… S.H.I.E.L.D really needed to invest in more private phones. "I'm in the middle of an interrogation and this moron is giving me everything." She paused "Look, you can't pull me out of this right now"

"Natasha. Barton's been compromised." Phil told her solemnly.

'Natasha' breathed sharply and all was quiet for a while before "Let me put you on hold." Suddenly it sounded like all of Hell had broken loose on the other end, sounds of punches, headbutts and cries of pain forced their way through the phone, the snapping sound of a broken nose, the loud cracking and clunking of broken wood, the noise of somebody being strangled… Wait! Was that a chain? While all of this was happening, Phil stood calmly, nodding slightly while waiting for her to finish. Then everything was silent. "Where's Barton now?" Natasha asked, not even out of breath.

"We don't know." Phil informed her, he gathered himself, looking as if he was about to leave. I stood up myself, brushing my hair out of my face and tying it up in a low ponytail at the back of my head.

"But he's alive." She stated hopefully.

"We think so. I'll brief you on everything when you get back. But first, we need you to talk to the big guy." he started to walk down another set of stairs with me right on his heel, assuming i should follow him.

"Coulson, you know that Stark trusts me about as far as he can throw me."

"No." He told her, halting in mid step. "I've got Stark. You get the big guy."

"Bozhe moi." We heard her say in slight horror before the line went dead with a loud beep.

"The big guy? She didn't sound too happy about that." I stated, joining him as he started to walk again.

"No, she didn't. He couldn't be worse than Stark though, we'll go talk to him now."

"I'm coming?"

"Well, if he doesn't let us in, i'm going to need your help." Oh, well that made more sense. So I followed him and got into a conspicuous black shield 4 by 4 and set off to stark tower.

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Once we had been dropped off outside the large tower, Phil guided me in, marvelling slightly at how he had finally got it working, and entered the lift.

"Jarvis! Tell Stark we need to speak." He said, seemingly to nothing.

"Of course Sir, and who is that with you, might I ask?" Spoke a voice that came from nowhere, I looked at Coulson in shock but he just shook his head, telling me that this was ok.

"This is Cali Stolder, I'm sure you can look her up."

"It's a pleasure Miss Stolder, I shall now alert Mr. Stark of your request." And then he began to speak to this 'Tony Stark' person, letting us hear the conversation "Sir, Agent Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D is on the line."

"I'm not in. I'm actually out." a new voice replied, slightly fuzzy as if he actually was outside.

"Jarvis, this is a matter of importance, he needs to speak."

"Sir, I'm afraid he's insisting."

"Close the line Jarvis. I got a date." He said before everything was quiet.

"I guess I was right then, Stark can be difficult, that's why I brought you with me, do you think you could get into Jarvis' system and override it?"

"I can try." I shrugged before concentrating, trying to find the best way in, it took a bit of time because this system was clearly very secure and well designed, but eventually I got in. As I was doing this, exerting some of my abilities, I noticed that my hands started to emit a slightly purple glow and seemed to crackle a tiny bit with energy. I turned back to Phil.

"Are you in? Good, now take us up to the floor he's on. I'll call him while you're at it." I nodded and the lift began to rise as I told it to and eventually stopped outside the floor, I decided to wait for a second while I pushed the call through.

"Sir, the telephone. I'm afraid my protocols are being overwritten." And as soon as the phones Phil started to speak immediately

"Stark, we need to talk." He said holding up his high tech phone and looking straight into the screen. Another face popped up on Phil's phone, Tony Stark, I remember from earlier, and replied.

"You have reached the live model decoy of Tony Stark, please leave a message." He joked, clearly a bit miffed that he had been interrupted.

"This is urgent."

"Then leave it urgently." I couldn't help but snigger quietly, this man was hilarious. Phil rolled his eyes and nodded at me to open the door. I flicked my fingers slightly and the doors slid open, then I cut off all control I had over the tower before i got too exhausted and followed Phil into the room. "Security breach!" He threw his arms out, in one of his hands was a glass of champagne which he then pointed towards a pretty redhead across the room "Thats on you." he told her pointedly.

"Mr. Stark." Phil greeted him with no emotion.

"Phil! Come in!" Said the redhead, walking over with a friendly smile on her face.

"Phil? Uh, his first name is agent." I let out a little snort at this and he turned to me "And who is this bag of bones?"

"Cali Stolder, at your service. What an honour it is to make your acquaintance… Trash can." I drawled sarcastically, grinning and giving a little mocking bow.

"You're that girl from the news, the one that went missing 4 years ago! You're supposed to be dead." The redhead breathed in shock and concern.

"Umm… Yeah. Funny that." I smiled.

"Oh my God! Are you ok?" She gasped with her hands over her mouth.

"She's been on the mend since S.H.I.E.L.D found her a few days back, she is much better than she was. That isn't why we're here though." Phil cut in.

"Oh, well, come on in, we're celebrating." The woman told us.

"Which is why he," Tony pointed right at my guardian "Can't stay. She can, I like her. I think she needs a sandwich though but no.. Nobody else is interested in the wellbeing of this… Living skeleton…" He trailed off into a mumble as he realised neither Phil, nor his girlfriend were interested.

"We need you to look this over." Phil told him, completely ignoring him and holding out a file. "Soon as possible."

"I don't like being handed things." Tony refused stubbornly.

"That's alright, because I love to be handed things. So, let's trade." The ginger passed her glass of champagne to Phil and took the file from him, she then took Tony's glass out of his hands, swapping it with the file. "Thank you." She grinned and playfully took a sip of his drink.

"Official consulting hours are between eight and five every other Thursday." Tony shrugged slightly, a bittersweet smile on his face.

"This isn't a consultation." Phil smiled back at him. Come to think of it, that smile never left his face.

"Is this about the Avengers?" Asked the woman before realising she really shouldn't of said that "Which I… I know nothing about."

"The Avengers Initiative was scrapped, I thought. And I didn't even qualify." Tony pointed out.

"I didn't know that either."

"Yeah, apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others." He walked over to his computers and started to scan the files.

"That I did know." His girlfriend nodded along in agreement, I shrugged slightly, accepting this as being true.

"This isn't about personality profiles anymore." Phil cut it, grimacing slightly.

"Whatever." Tony dismissed him, "Miss Potts, got a minute?" 'Miss Potts' strode over to him as he finished scanning the file and set it aside and they proceeded to have a quiet conversation which they… Didn't bother to keep quiet.

"You know, I thought we were having a moment."

"I was having 12 percent of a moment." Miss Potts smiled jokingly before sighing gravely. "This seems serious, Phil's pretty shaken."

"How did you notice? Why is he Phil? And what about Skin and Bones over there?"

"Cali. And I doubt an earthquake could shake that girl." I turned to Phil, shrugging in agreement. "Anyway, what is all of this?"

"This is, uh…" Tony fiddled with something before throwing his arms open wide and the different profiles appeared in the air in holographic form. "This." Tony finished. Now, a few hours earlier and I would've freaked out, but Phil had been extremely thorough in his tour and by now i was pretty sure nothing would faze me.

Clips of some of the recruits popped up on the screen, Captain America, the Hulk, even Thor. Tony and Miss Potts just stared at the information in astonishment.

"I'm going to take the jet to D.C. tonight." She told him slowly.

"Tomorrow." Tony objected childishly.

"You've got homework. You've got a lot of homework."

"Well, what if I didn't?"

"If you didn't?"

"Yeah."

"You mean if you finished?" Tony just nodded his head earnestly. "Well, um… Then…" She then whispered something in his ear which caused him to gasp theatrically, making me and Phil look away in embarrassment.

"Square deal. It's the last date." Tony proclaimed before kissing her one last time.

"Work hard." She told him before walking towards us. "Come on, I'll walk you out." She told us before getting into the lift with Phil, I almost followed but hung back as I saw Tony pick up the holographic Tesseract and stare at it worriedly.

"I'll wait for you outside." Phil promised me before stepping into the lift after noticing what I was looking at. I nodded and turned to Miss Potts.

"It was lovely to meet you Miss Potts, have a safe flight." I smiled at her politely.

"Thank you, you stay safe as well. And it's Pepper." She told me before the doors closed. I made my way over to Tony who looked up as he heard me approach.

"Hey kid, you not going?"

"Oh, umm, yeah I am. I just wanted to talk." He looked at me in confusion and I explained. "You seem unsure about this, you done want to do it, do you."

"I'm not a team player."

"But everyone needs you."

"I'm sure you can get rid of the threat with just this dude alone." he pointed to the Hulk.

"Yes but you can't just win a war with brute force, you need a brain behind it."

"Why do you care? In the most non-offensive way possible."

"I'm on the team." I grinned looking at one of the smaller files hidden amongst the others, willing it to open. Some video footage of myself and a fact file type thing popped up in front of his face, he looked through it, marvelling at the footage of me losing it in my cell.

"When did you learn you could do all of this?"

"For the first year of my life I can actually remember, nothing, but the longer I spent in that cell the more my… Whatever you call it, powers if you will, grew. Then they got out of control, as you saw." I nodded towards the screen. "I'm still discovering what else I can do, I mean the other day I learnt how to move stuff with my mind… Then I learnt how to connect with energy… Today I found out how to control what computers do… I'm scared it won't stop."

"What? It was you who hacked Jarvis?"

"Did I say that?" I asked innocently, he just stared at me in suspicion before just giving up.

"Anyway, you weren't even on the list at first. Why would you want to put yourself in danger?"

"I figured I've not got much going for me at the minute, I mean technically I should be on my last legs and everyone I knew thinks I'm dead anyway… But I just wanted to help out, do whatever I can. I don't want to just watch as everything is destroyed, I'd rather have done everything I could to stop it. besides, I thinks it's about time i got out. I've been locked up long enough."

"I was held hostage once… They tried to force me to make weapons for them, instead I made my first Iron man suit. From then on I stopped giving the world a means to destroy itself and worked on saving it instead. I'm just… This isn't human, this isn't science, this should be physically impossible, how am I supposed to help against that? Fact, knowledge, science, it's all I know."

"Fact, science and knowledge is what's going to find the Tesseract. And Iron Man is one of, if not the best, heroes in the world right now."

"Yes, but theres no way I can stop this, not even with the suit."

"And that's why we're working as a team."

"And do you think it's worth it?"

"Do I think saving the world is worth it? Yes."

"I'll think about it Kid…" He mumbled before grinning, his former joking attitude back in full force. "I didn't peg you as a serious type."

"Me? Serious? You must be dreaming!"

"Oh go get a sandwich or something, Sparky."

"Oh I'm fine, you make sure you don't gorge yourself too much, you wont be able to fit in that tin can of yours if you're not careful."

"Well, just try not to electrocute anyone Sizzler. I'll be watching." He joked.

"Do you need some oil to get you going, Rust-Bucket? Or are you ok to do your work now." Tony just laughed before turning back to his holographic screens, getting to work.

"I'm sure Agent must be getting worried by now, why don't you get going?"

"I am tired I suppose… Ok, I'll see you soon then."

"Night Kid." He waved me off flippantly.

"Night Tony." I replied before skipping all the way downstairs and out into the waiting car where phil sat with a smile. He didn't ask me what was said but i got the feeling he didn't need to.

"Early night tonight, we get to meet the Captain tomorrow." He smiled before we drove off into the night back to the Helicarrier. I couldn't help but grin happily, this was going to work.


	4. Chapter 4

**And here we get our first glimpse of a certain Captain ;) I just want to take this time to tell you, feel free to review this story. Do you have any questions so far? Is there anything wrong with how I'm portraying any of the characters? Just anything? I really want to make this story the best I am physically capable of doing so say anything, I wont be offended! :) Anyway, I really hope you enjoy this chapter, you can get readin'!**

* * *

"So shall I just wait in here then?" I asked, lying across a row of seats, trying to get the phone they'd gave me to work. I was having no such luck. We were inside the quinjet, and having landed next to Captain America's apartment, Phil was practically bunny hopping in his shoes to go and get the 1940s superhero.

"Yes. And we may be a while so-" He held his hand out with a small smile and I passed him the phone with an embarrassed smile, the awkwardness grew when he tapped the screen just a few times and handed it back to me, having successfully gotten to the game I wanted to play in 3 seconds. "There you are. Lego Lord of the Rings, eh?"

"It looked interesting." I shrugged watching the loading screen, when it finished and instructions on the controls came up I was overjoyed. "Are you going to get going then? The longer you stand here the longer I have to sit in here."

Phil just rolled his eyes. "I'll see you in a bit." He said before getting off the plane and closing the door. I started to play the lego game, not wanting to speak to the pilot, he didn't look very friendly.

"Okay… Drag one finger to move… Second finger tap to jump." I mumbled quietly, following the directions as hoards of the bad guys ran forward "Tap to hit…" I tapped the screen forcefully but I ended up losing all of my lives and dying. All the studs I had collected so far exploded from the dead character and after I'd re-spawned and I ran around trying to get them back. "Noooo! The money!" I cried before I heard someone clearing their throat.

I looked up to see the pilot staring at me with a raised eyebrow "Miss Stolder?" I nodded "It's just a game." I winced as he rubbed his temples.

"Sorry." I whispered loudly.

"Just… Please, keep the noise down." I rolled my eyes and turned back to the game. Fine. I'd play in silence.

* * *

By the time the door re-opened, I had just defeated the Balrog and paused the game, bored of it, and chucked the phone across the plane. I let my head fall backwards off the seats and looked at the two men who stepped through the threshold of the plane. Phil stepped in first, followed by a tall, dark blonde, muscular man who looked extremely uncomfortable and out of place. I grinned at the both of them and waved, which must've looked slightly weird since I was upside down.

"Hello!" I shouted, Phil just looked up unamused but the other man, which I'm assuming was Captain America, almost jumped out his skin, bless him. He leapt two feet into the air and clutched his chest, his eyes wide with momentary terror. I don't think he realised I was there.

"I'm sorry ma'am." He apologised, which made me grimace, ma'am? Seriously? "I didn't notice you there. You gave me quite the fright, Steve Rogers, pleasure to meet you." He said politely, walking over after placing his bag on the floor and holding his hand out for me to shake, I reached over and took it noticing the largeness of his hand as it enclosed mine.

"Cali Stolder, you too."

Shaking my hand, he looked at me as if noticing something for the first time. "You're British!" He exclaimed in surprise, making me laugh. I did wonder when somebody would bring that up.

"Yep." I smiled before shuffling my feet up the row of seats, giving him room to sit but not actually having to move. He nodded his thanks before sitting down I turned back to Phil. "You fangirled yet?" When he just stared at me I turned back to Steve "Has he had any fangirl moments?" He looked extremely caught off and awkward but I just waited, well, until Phil stepped in to save him.

"No." He glared at me slightly before narrowing his eyes. "Wheres the phone gone?" I gasped and looked at my hands in fake puzzlement, however after one glance I saw that he wasn't buying into it so I rolled my eyes jokingly and shrugged, pointing in the general direction I had thrown it.

"Somewhere over that way." I told him, noticing the condescending look Steve gave me before closing my eyes and relaxing, deciding that sleeping might be the best way to pass the time.

I heard a scrape from where phil was standing before "Cali! you broke it. You broke one of Stark's 'unbreakable' phones." I cracked one eye open and saw that it was indeed smashed. Oops. "He won't be too happy about that. What did you do?"

"Well since I couldn't express my celebration at completing the level verbally, I had to resort to expressing it physically… And then it just flew. It was like magic!"

Phil just shook his head and pocketed it. "He spent a long time making sure those wouldn't break."

"I'm sure he should've tried harder." I dismissed before settling back into silence and closing my eyes again.

* * *

When I woke up, now well rested, Steve sat holding a tablet on which he was looking through the files of the Avengers while Phil talked him through it. I sat up and rubbed my bleary eyes before my vision cleared. I saw that Steve was in the middle of watching the video of the Hulk's attack on the army with an expression of minute horror on his face. They both turned to me when they saw that I was up.

"Did you have a good sleep ma'am?" Steve asked me. I ignored him. "Ma'am?" Seriously! Ma'am, no, Cali, yes, even Stolder would do. Not 'ma'am'. Out of the corner I saw Phil smile, again, at Steve who turned to him dejectedly.

"She wont answer unless you use her name." Phil sighed prompting Steve to turn back around in realisation.

"Cali?"

"Yes?" he looked at me weirdly.

"Did you?"

"Did I what?" I replied in all seriousness, trying not to laugh at his expression.

"I, umm, already said. Did you have a nice rest?" He replied irritated, his face scrunching up in confusion.

"Oh, sorry, I thought you were talking to 'Ma'am' whoever that is. And yes, thank you, I feel much more awake now." Steve just stared at me in disbelief while the grumpy pilot managed a laugh and Phil a grin. He just shook is head and opened his mouth to reply.

"Anyway, we were just looking through this information on the Avengers initiative, I understand you are to be joining the team too?"

"Oh, yes, I have a 'special skill set' or something of that nature." I shrugged "I just wanted to help."

"Yes, I read your file actually, how did you do all those things? Was it the same way I got my abilities?"

"You mean the serum? No, I guess was just born with them, I mean these guys couldn't find anything similar to yours in my blood."

"You were locked away for a while though, are you sure they didn't do any experiments?"

"I highly doubt it, I mean, I can remember most of my time there and they never took me away from my cell, they just kept me locked up and observed. I didn't see who it was, they always kept themselves hidden."

"I'm sorry,"

"Yes, well, I'm pretty sure they didn't give me these 'powers', besides, I think my abilities are more on the mentally generated side than the physically generated like yours are." Steve tilted his head in acceptance and looked back to his tablet.

"We're about forty minutes out from base, sir." Agent grumps called from the front before returning to his piloting. Phil nodded before standing up and joining us.

"Right, so you were most likely born with your abilities." Steve stated looking at me for confirmation, which I answered with a nod before he carried on his questioning "But this Doctor Banner was trying to replicate the serum that was used on me?"

"A lot of people were." Phil replied, launching into an explanation. "You were the worlds first superhero. Banner thought gamma radiation might hold the key to unlocking Erskine's original formula."

"Didn't really go his way did it?" Steve commented as he watched the Hulk slam a car apart with a roar. I huffed in agreement, I felt sorry for the man.

"Not so much. When he's not that thing though, guy's like a Stephen Hawking." Steve glanced at him, his expression one of the upmost confusion.

"He's like… A really smart person." I supplied and he nodded in realisation before we both turned back to Phil.

"I gotta say," He began and I tried to hold in a laugh, I suppose he'd kept this in long enough "It's an honour to meet you, officially." Steve smiled at him politely in mild amusement before he started speaking again. "I sort of met you, I mean, I watched you while you were sleeping." I snorted and started to laugh uncontrollably while Steve stood up uncomfortably and walked over to look out the window of the plane. "I mean, I was… Present while you were unconscious from the ice." By this time, tears were streaming down my face as I clutched my aching sides, Steve's face expression merging into one of pained embarrassment. "You know, it's really, it's just a… Just a huge honour to have you on board." Phil finished uncomfortably.

"Well, I hope I'm the man for the job."

"Oh, you are." I managed to get out through my giggles.

"Absolutely." Phil continued after sending a scowl in my direction. "Uh… We've made some modifications to the uniform. I had a little design input."

"The uniform? Aren't the stars and stripes a little… Old fashioned?"

"With everything that's happening, the things that are about to come to light, people might just need a little old fashioned." Phil told him seriously and everything was silent.

"Well, this just got gloomy." I commented. Both of them looked at me unamused and I stayed silent for the rest of the journey.

* * *

About half an hour later our plane touched down on the Helicarrier and I was the first to leave. Phil had been as nice as ever, maybe a bit embarrassed but Steve had completely changed. He was no longer treating me with friendliness but with irritation, like I had done something to personally offend him. And every time I had tried to be friendly and make a joke or lighten the mood he had glowered at me even more darkly. I didn't know what was wrong with him, I decided I'd just ignore him instead.

Anyway, after getting off the plane I waited for Phil until he got off closely followed by Captain A-mardy-arse and led us over to an agent in a tight black suit with bright red hair who nodded at the three of us politely, staring at me slightly longer with a mildly curious look.

"Agent Romanoff." Phil began causing her to turn back to him. "Captain Rogers." he introduced him completely forgetting about me. I ignored it, Phil was starstruck, I couldn't hate him for that.

"Ma'am?" Steve spoke first. God. Ma'am. Again? I groaned out loud causing him to scowl at me again while the agents graced me with smiles.

"Hi." Agent Romanoff, which I'm assuming was the 'Natasha' that Phil spoke to on the phone, dismissed him with a simple one word greeting before turning back to the other agent. "They need you on the bridge. Face time."

"See you there." He replied before walking away. Steve and Natasha did the same leaving me on my own and instead of following them like a lost puppy I wandered off on my own, looking around the abundance of vehicles crowding the deck marvelling at the technology.

After a while, I felt like hopping into one of the planes and flying around for a bit. Just to see if I could. I was really bored… I wondered how much trouble I'd be in if I was to… Say, loosen, some of the ropes holding them down. It would certainly make for some entertainment. As I was contemplating doing exactly this though, I felt a stare on the back of my head. Turning around I saw an agent looking at me from strapping another jet to the floor, shaking his head at me and tapping his earpiece with a raised eyebrow as if to scold a naughty child. Rolling my eyes I let my hand surround itself in the swirling blue and red mist and flicking my ring finger slightly I ripped the earpiece out of his ear, the mist travelling at the speed of a lightning bolt, so fast nobody saw it.

Leaving the angry agent to himself I turned back to go and find where Natasha had gone since I couldn't have any fun. However when I saw her standing alone as Steve went off to talk to another man, I felt a bit sorry for her, she looked lonely and I found myself wishing to go and keep her company. My eyes unconsciously concentrated themselves on the spot next to her while I remained indecisive of wether I should go over there or not. What if she didn't like me? Would she even want to speak me? What if I annoyed her like I did Steve? The questions kept coming but whilst I had the internal battle, my eyes never once left the spot to her right.

All of a sudden my vision began to warp, shapes and colours blending together in blurs and streaks. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly to try and get rid of it but as soon as my sight was shut off I felt a freezing cold sucking sensation in the centre of my body that began to spread quickly until my entire body was encompassed. Then I felt nothing for a split second, the ground seemingly disappearing from beneath my feet until they hit the ground again forcefully causing my eyes to snap open. I swayed dizzily for a moment, not taking notice of my surroundings until the cold feeling receded and vanished. I looked up and found myself face to face with a very stunned Natasha about two feet away. She stared at me in shock, eyes wide with disbelief and her hand placed over her mouth, frozen in mid gasp.

Another wave of dizziness rolled over me, causing my balance to waver until she grasped my shoulders. What had happened? Had I fainted or something?

"How did you do that?" she implored in a serious voice, but her face betrayed her complete befuddlement.

"What are you talking about?"

"What do you think I'm talking about? you just got from over there to just here in less than a second."

"I what?" I exclaimed, and sure enough, I was now standing in the exact spot I had been concentrating on moments before.

"You didn't know you were doing it?" Natasha queried, looking slightly concerned, I shook my head no. "And you've not done it before?"

"Never! I didn't know I could."

"Do you think you could do it again?"

"I don't know, I could try?" I offered. She nodded and I tried it, thinking back to what I had done. I concentrated on a space behind her, really hard, before blinking and felt the same sensation as before. I opened my eyes and found myself in the spot I'd wanted to be in, gasping in shock before Natasha turned around and did the same. I decided to try it differently, I imagined a being in front of her again, telling myself I really wanted to be in front of her before blinking, again, feeling the cold sensation and opening my eyes to find myself where I wanted to be. So I didn't have to be looking at the place to do it then… Woah, I realised, I could go anywhere I wanted.

"You're sure you haven't done this before?" I shook my head. "Right." She said before touching her hand to her earpiece. "Director, the girl with powers… Yes her, no, no problem it's just… Well you might want to check the security footage of the deck from a few minutes ago. No just do it, you'll see what I mean… Wait, did she?" She exclaimed suddenly smirking, laughter in her eyes. "No I don't know why, good on her though, that guy's an ass. No that wasn't what I meant, keep watching… Wait for it. If you mean disappear and reappear somewhere else in less than a second then yes, she did just do that. I don't know how neither does she… No, never. I have no idea. Do you want to see her? Oh she is? I'll just bring her with the others." She finished speaking and turned back to me. "I assume you're Stolder then?" She asked ironically, giving a small smile.

"Yep. It's nice to meet you. Natasha, right?" I grinned back.

"Yes, thats me. I have to say I'm intrigued by you. Everyone is, especially after that." She answered matter of factly. Can you do anything else?"

"Well, to be honest, I don't really know. I think at this point SHEILD probably knows more about me than I do. Telekineses and energy manipulation, you might call it, seem to be the main themes at the minute. I figured they could be put to good use."

"You joined the team." She stated "Why?"

"Oh, I couldn't help myself. I needed a bit of excitement. Plus not everyone can do what I can do, I may as well do some good with what I have."

She nodded before she started walking us towards Steve and the other man as the platform we stood on whirred into life "Gentlemen, you may wanna step inside. It's gonna get a little hard to breathe." I smirked at their suspicious expressions, I had seen this all before.

"Is this a submarine?" queried Steve in awe.

"Really? They want me in a submerged pressurised metal container?" The awkward looking, bespectacled man asked himself in amused horror. I looked at Natasha questioningly.

"Thats Dr. Banner. The Hulk."

"Really? He seems like such a nice… Quiet guy."

"Oh, he is. He could be dangerous though. Very few of us actually thought he'd be brought onto the project." I just nodded and then smirked again as the fans began to whir loudly and lift us out of the water, highly amused by the pairs' reactions.

"Oh, no." Banner muttered to himself. "This is much worse." I couldn't help but agree.

* * *

We entered the bridge, wading through the ocean of agents milling about doing their job. I chanced a look at the two men's faces and couldn't hold in a mirthful snort when I saw their mouths open and their eyes wide, both of them gaping like fish.

"Gentlemen." Director Fury called from across the room, smirking as Steve walked straight over to him, handed him 10 bucks and dazedly strode past him in disbelief. Fury patted his pocket triumphantly and greeted Dr. Banner extending his hand to him who reluctantly shook it. "Doctor, thank you for coming."

"Thank you for asking nicely." Banner replied sardonically before checking himself. "So, uh… How long am I staying?" he asked more politely.

"Once we get our hands on the tesseract you're in the clear." Fury replied, his face lacking any expression but there were some telltale signs of a slight lie with made me stare at him suspiciously. After him returning my stare with a raised eyebrow I decided to drop it, I could look more into it later. He nodded in satisfaction and turned back to Banner who had started speaking.

"Where are you with that?"

Phil was the one to answer but my mind was somewhere else. I looked at Natasha as she studied an image on a screen forlornly. Stepping to the side I saw a photo of Agent Barton, the man who saved me. Apparently he was missing, or… Wanted. Oh no.

A hand patted me comfortingly on the back and i turned around to see Phil who began to speak "We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cellphones, laptops, if it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."

"Huh, creepy." I muttered to myself, hearing me, Natasha rolled her eyes before turning to the others.

"Thats still not going to find them in time." She spoke, all trace of sadness now gone, replaced with her stone cold, emotionless 'agent' face. I'd have to learn how to do that.

"You have to narrow the field." Banner began, going into science mode, it was quite fascinating to watch. "How many spectrometers do you have access to?"

"How many are there?" Fury queried, as clueless as I was.

"Call every lab you know, tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm based on cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?" Well, that was a tonne of mumbo jumbo and a half" I mumbled to myself, shaking my head in confusion and watching a few others around the room do the same.

"Agent Romanoff, would you show Dr. Banner to his laboratory please." Fury dismissed them both and pivoted on his heels to come and talk to me.

I watched as Natasha led Banner off, saying "You're gonna love it, Doc. We got all the toys."

"Miss Stolder. I must say, I was surprised to learn you wanted to be on board with this. I suspected that you'd want to be free, considering the circumstances we found you in."

"Ah, the past is in the past, as they say." I shrugged, smiling "I don't exactly have anywhere to go either."

"To your old family?"

"Well, as you just said, they're my _old_ family. They all think I'm dead."

"But that doesn't tell me why you wanted to join the team." He raised an eyebrow.

"I suppose I was already involved by the time I saw what happened in New Mexico. I figured that if I could help, then why shouldn't I?"

"That's a very honourable thing to do, Miss Stolder. Coulson has informed me of your… Abilities. What else can you tell me about them?"

"I'm really not too sure about them myself. I remember the first thing I did was cut the power… It was in my first few months there and I got really down one day. There was no power until I got over it. Anyway, my abilities grew from there. I think I know about as much as you do."

"We got a hit." An agent suddenly interrupted the conversation, from across the room where some sort of face recognition programme was set up one one of the holographic screens around the room. "Sixty-seven percent match." The person the technology had zeroed in on looked strangely familiar, but I couldn't for the life of me place him anywhere in my memories. From the way everyone acted though, I guessed this must have been the 'demigod scum' everyone was on about that destroyed the New Mexico facility… He didn't look to sad about it though. "Wait, cross match, seventy-nine percent."

"Location?" Asked Phil in 'agent mode'.

"Stuttgart, Germany. 28, Konigstrasse. He's not exactly hiding." The other agent replied.

"Captain, you're up." Fury told Steve stoically, who nodded and left, walking with purpose. He then turned to me and stopped, seemingly deep in thought. After a while he shook his head and spoke. "As useful as your abilities might be, I can't send you in just yet. You're too important at this point. Go and join doctor Banner in his lab for now, I'll send someone up with food." He finished, dismissing me with a wave of his hand.

Great, I thought to myself, heading towards the lab, I bet I'm missing all the action.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello again to any returning readers, and welcome to any new ones. Just a forewarning, this chapter is a little bit shorter than I originally planned, so I'm sorry if anyone wanted more, but I really like the way it ended so I just left it. I would like to thank Sabina for reviewing, it means a lot and I'm glad you like it. Anyway, enjoy the chapter, until next time!**

* * *

Dr. Banner noticed me as soon as I walked through the doors, greeting me with a slight wave of his hand and a polite nod. I returned the gesture, smiling warmly.

"Hey, are you working in here too then?"

I couldn't help but snort "Me? Oh, I'm sorry, I'm no scientist. I don't even know the basics."

"Oh…" he replied uncomfortably. "So, not to sound rude, but why are you in here?"

"To keep me out the way I suppose. They didn't need me yet so they dumped me elsewhere until they do."

"I get the feeling. I can't say I'm the best company though."

"You don't seem very bad to me."

"You haven't seen what I can do."

"Nor you I. Besides, we may as well get used to each other if we're going to be on the same team, hey?"

"Wait…" He said in realisation after a moment's silence. "You're a part of the Avengers? You weren't on the file."

"Paper file?" He nodded. "Then I wouldn't be. It's a… Recent development. They most likely haven't had time to update everything yet."

"So… What can you do then? Hacking? Specialist combat skills?"

I couldn't help but chuckle at his confusion. "Ummm, no." I laughed. "Maybe its better I show you."

"Show me-" He began before his mouth dropped open in surprise as my upturned hand began to crackle and glow purple. "How-" He was cut off once again as I eyed his pen sticking out of his pocket and the familiar strings of mist appeared, snaking and looping over to his pocket, the tendrils gripping the pen and tugging it free. It hovered in the air at eye level for a while before I gave a few tiny flicks with my index finger, making it spin, before returning it to his pocket.

"Of course, I can move bigger things than just pens… Oh maybe I should get you the file anyway, it's a lot to explain."

"That might be for the best, do you want me to log in and-" He was left open mouthed yet again as the screen in front of him flashed into life. Quickly bypassing security without alerting the system to a break in I sifted through the files in my head until I found mine and brought it up on screen.

Dr Banner scrutinised it for a lengthy amount time, probably trying to wrap his head around it. I saw him replay the videos quite a few times.

Speaking of the videos, I couldn't help but replay the footage of me teleporting. It was mildly fascinating to watch. It seems that after I closed my eyes, I was encompassed in a purple and gold swirling glow for a brief moment until I faded into nothing from the centre of my stomach to the rest of my body before vanishing completely. This of course, happened only in the blink of an eye as by the time I had opened my eyes I was in a different place. Of course, as I continued to do it, I managed to speed up the time in which I did it, to the point that I didn't even see myself disappear I was doing it so fast.

"This is… Impressive." Dr Banner finally spoke, looking up from the screen in a state of wonder and slight admiration. "How do you do it?"

"Honestly?" I grinned "I don't have a clue. No idea, not in the slightest. I could do it before I ended up with Hydra, I mean, that's why they took me in the first place… I can't remember when it did start though."

"You don't seem terribly upset by that." He eyed me suspiciously.

"About what?"

"Being captured, left to rot, even at the monsters who did it."

"Well, firstly, thank you for your concern. Secondly, no, I'm not 'terribly upset'. I mean, they could have done it out of naive, childish, delusions of power, but I believe they most likely did it out of fear. That's how most conflict starts I suppose. But it's ok to be afraid… Admittedly they didn't go about it in a brilliant way, but they never did anything truly horrible and unforgiving. For that I can be grateful towards them." Dr Banner mad a noise of disbelieving protest before I smirked and carried on "Don't get me wrong, I'm still livid. Under no circumstances should a person ever do that to another person, even if you think it's the right thing to do at the time. All I'm saying is… Well, to put it simply, it could've been worse… And just so you know, it's Cali, by the way, not 'Miss Stolder'." I finished smiling.

Dr Banner just gaped at me for a while, at a loss for words, before smiling back, albeit a tad reluctantly. "Only if you call me Bruce." Suddenly something beeped loudly and Director fury's voice came through the speakers. "We've got Loki. They're bringing him back to base now. Be alert and be aware." And then his voice was gone as quickly as it came.

"Wonderful." I deadpanned as Bruce nodded in agreement.

* * *

Later on, we were still in the lab, a pleasant, comfortable conversation flowing between us. A while ago some agents had come in with an alien looking spear, a glowing blue stone embedded into the top, and proclaimed it as Loki's weapon, telling Bruce to get to work on it, which he did while I sat down with a book on the correct use of weaponry, which was very surprisingly, quite useful.

"So, why are you fighting with us?" He asked me suddenly after a few minutes silence. "Just out of curiosity?"

"Well… It's not that I want to fight. I hate the thought of killing. But that's not to say that if it comes down to violence I wont do anything, I'll do what needs to be done. The reason I joined, and it sounds so incredibly stupid saying it, was that I wanted a bit of excitement. I've been bored for too long." I grinned before becoming serious once again. "A honestly? I just want to help people, that's all I could ever be proud of. All I could ever be satisfied with." Bruce nodded thoughtfully and went back to his work.

"I admire you." He blurted out after only a few minutes silence.

"Huh?" I asked taken aback.

"Sorry, its just… I admire you. You've been through hell, figured out you have some, potentially, extremely dangerous abilities that you may not have control of, and you still come out kind, optimistic, selfless. I wish I could do the same, how do you do it?"

"Accept yourself." I replied bluntly without thought, gazing back at his incredulous stare with equal intensity.

"Thats it?" He asked skeptically.

"Well, mostly." I smiled. "Little reassurances help too, I suppose. Like, it could be worse, I am needed, I'm using my abilities for good, this is the best thing I could be doing. Especially in situations like this, I've found. It's rewarding to give, to give your best and not wallow in self pity… And be nice to everyone, always, no matter what. That's the most important."

"I've hurt people though. Haven't you ever hurt someone?" He interrupted me.

I laughed bitterly. "How do you think Hydra found me? I killed my parents!" I exclaimed hatefully before realising what I had just said. "By accident of course, I was asleep at the time, but it was still me, not Hydra, or any escaped criminals like the rest of the world seems to think. It's part of the reason I was ok with being locked up for all that time, the reason I'm so eager to save people. I regret it. I regret what I did every single day, and will continue to do so for the rest of my life. But there was nothing that anyone could have done, it wasn't fully my fault, I was young and in-experienced. And you can keep looking back, holding on to the past, but if you don't look forward, if you don't look where you're going, you could walk straight off a cliff… Well, metaphorically. Do you get me?"

He mulled my words over and eventually nodded understandingly. "Yes, I do. Thank you for telling me. You know, you're pretty wise for a seventeen year old." I smiled and jokingly turned my nose up in the air waving him away before turning back to him. "How do you know I won't lose it in the future? There's no way of knowing that I will have control over the other guy."

"You don't want control." I stopped him immediately.

"Wha-"

I cut him off. "You can't control him. That is the worst possible thing you can try and do. You have to work with him, its the same, almost exactly the same, with me and my powers. They are much stronger than us both. You have to work out a compromise."

"A compromise?"

"Yes. Think about it, they are both working for the same thing as we are. They, as weird as it sounds, possibly know best, how to control themselves best, but we have the thought process, the intelligence that they just don't have that is needed to make them work. They are also programmed, have it imbedded into their systems, to protect us. We can't fight them on that, we have to learn to work together."

Bruce just looked at me oddly. "I hadn't thought about that." He admitted.

"Well its something worth thinking about." I raised my eyebrow and gave him a knowing smile.

At that exact moment we were interrupted by the sound of a large amount of footsteps from the corridor. Both of us wanting to see what the commotion was, we turned to face the glass wall behind our backs.

First, a large number of armed guards rounded the corner outside, closely followed by none other than Loki himself. I could sense him before I even laid eyes on him, and when I did, I was unashamed to admit I was scared out of my wits. He was tall, extremely tall, and practically emanated power. To say he was threatening would be an understatement. His eyes held a manic gleam to them and his expression seemed set permanently into one of smug satisfaction.

The procession continued to move slowly across the corridor and the lunatic truly seemed as if he was enjoying himself. "They really did find him." I breathed with a slight tremor in my voice, Bruce nodded slightly, him too at a loss for words. It was at the point of passing the door that Loki looked up and stared into the room, immediately smiling wider when his eyes immediately found Bruce.

He disappeared behind a panel briefly and Bruce turned his head around and took his glasses off, pinching the bridge of his nose uncomfortably as he cast a pained look back at the glass. Loki re-emerged, smirking predatorily, taking large, relaxed, exaggerated steps as he was escorted to his cell, giving the impression that he was in control, even here.

His mischievous gaze then left Bruce and found it's way to me. The change was immediate; his eyes widened considerably as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing and his smirk dropped before his jaw slackened in apparent shock and recognition, leaving him gaping open mouthed and paralysed in stupefaction as he ceased all movement. His guards had to forcibly push him the rest of the way as he seemed incapable of moving on his own and kept stumbling slightly as he was moved past the windows, his previous composure of arrogance and superiority completely abolished. Not once did his green orbs leave mine until he was out of sight.

After he was gone I turned to look at Bruce apprehensively and found him looking back at me with the same level of concern. "What on Earth was that?" He asked. "Does he know you?"

"No!" I denied in distress. "I have no idea why he just… He-… Bruce I'm scared." I admitted with a shiver, I couldn't help but feel that something was wrong, that something was missing from the picture.

"Yes." He tried to comfort me anxiously. "Let's go see what's going on." I nodded an followed him out of the door and back to the control room with a burning desire for answers. Was S.H.E.I.L.D keeping something from us all?

Upon walking into the room and glancing around at its occupants, I promptly noticed a new arrival.

He was tall, possibly even taller than Loki, and clothed in heavy metal armour that looked like it came out of a fantasy book. I knew immediately who he was, having seen the footage of the destroyer in New Mexico. This was Thor, God of Thunder and brother of Loki. And if the shock of being in close proximity to yet another God wasn't enough, I was even more disconcerted by the fact that heh was staring intently at me in the exact same way that Loki had just minutes beforehand.

The last thing I saw was his lips move as the name "Calista?" was uttered from them in a disbelieving whisper before I was tightly enveloped in a pair of unyielding muscular arms.


	6. Chapter 6

The first thing I did was panic. I stood there, not moving, not even breathing as he rocked me from side to side in his arms. Then I tried to get away, squirming and trying to push him away, my muscles straining but ultimately failing as the big blonde chuckled and held me even tighter. Then my eyes started to after and my legs gave up on me as I struggled to get air into my lungs.

"Ok, that's enough, let her go." A new pair of hands gripped my shoulders, pulling me from the giants grasp and supporting me when I almost fell. Say what you will about the 'heartless', 'emotionless' Black Widow, but at that moment she was comparable to an angel.

"Calista, we thought you were gone. Why didn't you get in contact sooner? Not even Heimdall could see you!" Thor boomed jovially, a wide grin gracing his face. "I'm so happy to see you safe and well. Loki will be ecstatic-"

"I don't know you." I cut him off bluntly, stolen shock from the greeting.

"Oh, how I've missed your games." He laughed happily, "but you can stop pretending now." He smiled.

"I think you've got the wrong person. I have no idea who you are."

"Calista, what has gotten into you?" Thor asked, seeing the unshed tears in her eyes and becoming worried.

"No, not Calista, Cali. Please leave me alone." I whimpered, sufficiently terrified before Nat led me over to sit next to Bruce who put his arm around me and rubbed my shoulder comfortingly whilst staring at the god in a manner that suggested bewilderment or very well controlled anger.

Thor was about to say something else when some video footage came to life in front of them, showing Loki, contained in a large, glass cell in the centre of the room. Fury stepped into the view of the camera and strode up to the control panel. From across the room, Thor continued to stare at me, seemingly trying to gauge my reaction. Giving him an odd look I turned back to the screen, resolving to ignore him.

"In case it's unclear." Fury began, his voice sounding muffled through the camera. "You so much as scratch that glass…" He pressed a button and a hatch opened beneath the prison, gale force winds blowing throughout the room. Loki looked unperturbed, just looking down in mild curiosity. "Thirty thousand feet, straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works?" The hatch closed. "Ant. Boot." Fury finished smugly, pointing between Loki and the control panel in turn.

"An impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me." Loki smirked.

"Built for something a lot stronger than you."

"Oh, I've heard." Loki looked straight into the camera, knowing we were watching. I felt Bruce's arm tighten around me as he knowingly half smiled. "The mindless beast, makes play he's still a man… How desperate are you, you call on such lost creatures to defend you?"

"How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace, and you kill 'cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did.

"Oooh." Loki mocked. "It burns you to come so close, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share, and then to be reminded what real power is."

Fury smiled. "Well, you let me know if 'Real Power' wants a magazine or something." He started to walk away and Loki watched with a conflicted expression, his former bravado gone as he battled some kind of inner turmoil. As Fury was about to vanish from view he sighed defeatedly.

"Stop."

"Mmmm?" Fury raised a humoured eyebrow.

"I wish to speak to the girl."

"The girl?"

"What other girl is there in this flying contraption?" He seethed. "You know exactly who I mean."

"Yes, I suppose I do."

"So bring her to me."

"I can't allow that."

Loki glared at his back as he walked out. "Then you shall all suffer." The screen went black and we all turned to look at each other in concern for a few minutes. Thor hadn't even looked at his brother throughout the exchange, he just continue to stare in my direction, looking more and more cut to bits as he listened.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce broke the silence with his trusty sarcasm. I gave him a weak smile and squeezed his arm before standing up and starting to pace in contemplation. Why the hell did he want to talk to me?

"Loki's gonna drag this out." Steve took a more serious approach. "So, Thor, what's his play?"

He looked away from me with much reluctance before speaking. "He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard or any world known, he means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An army? From outer space?" Steve said with as much disbelief as I felt.

"So he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

Thor's attention was captured fully now. "Selvig?"

"He's an astrophysicist."

"He's a friend."

"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours." I liked down at my feet sadly.

"I wanna know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here."

Bruce looked at Steve. "I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell the crazy on him."

"Have care how you speak." Thor growled threateningly. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's my brother."

"He killed eighty people in two days." Nat raised her eyebrow.

"He's adopted."

I snorted at that. "I'm sorry but he's nuts. He's a psychopath."

"You do would not defend him?"

"Why the hell would I?" I looked at him in shock before catching sight of Tony walking towards us with Phil in tow and smiled to myself.

"I think it's about the mechanics. Iridium, what did they need the Iridium for?"

"It's a stabilising agent." Tony called out, getting everyones attention before turning back to Phil and crying on their previous conversation. "I'll fly you there. Keep the love alive." Phil just shook his head and walked away smiling. Tony continued with his explanation. "Means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD." I shuddered at that. Tony walked further into the room, patting Thor as he moved past him. "No hard feelings, Point Break. You've got a mean swing… Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants. Sparky!" He reached me and ruffled my hair. "Good to see you, kid. Get here alright?"

"Yeah… I kind of might have… You know… Here. Sorry." I held my smashed Stark Phone out to him, looking shamefully at the floor.

"Kid! What did you do to it?" He exclaimed in horror.

"Well, you know, I was annoyed at the time and… Powers… And then it was broken." I mumbled while shooting him a winning smile.

"Damn… I'll have to add 'Cali-proof Phone to the list." He pocketed it and shook his head, pulling me into a headlock and giving me a noogie while I laughed. He let me go, grinning, and walked up to the central control panels, stopping there to address the crew. "Uhh, raise the mizzenmast, jib the topsails." The agents all stared back at him blankly. "That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did." He stopped suddenly, covering one eye with his hand and looking around. "How does Fury even see these?"

"He turns." Said a stern looking female, standing off to the side. I guessed this was the Agent Hill that Phil had told me about.

"… Sounds exhausting." Tony pulled a small, metallic thing out of his pocket and pressing it in a discreet place on the panel. Nobody else seemed to notice though so I left it alone. "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source, of high energy density, something to kick start the cube."

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Hill raised her eyebrow.

"Last night. The packet, Selvig's notes, extraction theory papers? Am I the only one who did the reading?" I wished I had, then I might have been of some use.

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked, eager to get in-the-know.

"He's got to heat the cube to 120 million Kelvin just to break though the coulomb barrier." Bruce gave his input.

"Unless Selvig has figured out a way to stabilise the quantum tunnelling effect."

"Well, if he could do that, he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet."

"Finally, someone who speaks English."

"Is that what just happened?" I grinned an mimicked his sentiment as I sent my hand over my head, miming watching the words fly by. Apparently he didn't appreciate it. He just glared a little condescendingly at me. I rolled my eyes and watched as Tony and Bruce shook hands out of mutual respect for one another.

"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner. You're work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

"Thanks." Bruce replied while I stared at the exchange in amusement.

"Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join him." Fury made his entrance.

"Let's start with that stick of his. It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon." Steve. Again.

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube." Wait, I thought, no it isn't. Similar, yes, but not the same. I could feel its energy from here. Nobody commented though, so I stayed quiet, believing it didn't really matter. Fury continued. "And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

"Monkeys? I do not understand." Just as baffled, I exchanged a bewildered glance with him. Neither do I, Buddy Boy, I thought, neither do I.

"I do!" Steve shouted, looking incredibly proud of himself. "I understood that reference." From the way everybody rolled their eyes, I wasn't too bothered anymore.

"Shall we play, doctor?"

"This way, sir." Bruce responded to Tony just as playfully. I laughed as I saw one of the agents look around shiftily before returning to his game.

"Coming, kid?" Tony called over his shoulder before disappearing all together.

I began to follow them out when someone cleared their throat behind me. "Um… May I have a word, away from prying eyes?" I nodded uncertainly and followed him out onto the deck. "Calista, I believe I could have scared you before, and for that I apologise, but you must know that I was, and still am, incredibly surprised and relieved to see you alive and well… To some extent anyway, but I realise that I acted brashly, and that you may not have forgiven me yet. But I must ask, why did you not try to contact me? Loki needs to see you, Valhalla I needed to see you."

"My name isn't Calista, I told you, it's just Cali. And why on Earth would Loki need to see me?"

"And as I told you before, Calista, this is no time for games. You know why." He chuckled in confusion. "If he just saw you, saw you were alive, it might be enough to help him. To change him back to the way he was before."

"I seriously doubt that. And I refuse to go anywhere near that psychopath!"

"I know you must be upset, the way he let you go, the way both of us did. We didn't defend you when you were incapable of doing so yourself. But he needs to see you're ok." I stared at him in a manner of upmost confusion. What the hell was he talking about? "Calista, he mourned for you. We all did, but nothing was more heartbreaking than watching him. And he never stopped, not even for a second. What happened broke him, he'll never forgive himself. So I sincerely hope you can find it in your heart to forgive him instead."

"Look, as tragic as that sounds, I still have no idea what you're talking about. I've never even met him, never. Nor you for that matter, you're making no sense and I think you have the wrong person." I told him as comfortingly as I could whilst feeling myself begin to panic again.

"Calista…" He started towards me in what seemed to be a cross between hurt and irritation.

"No. Stop! Why do you keep calling me that?" frightened tears began to form in my eyes as I threw my hands up in front of my face to halt any further advancements.

This seemed to get through to Thor as he halted in shock. "You… You truly do not remember." He choked out, realisation dawning on his face that fell in utter misery.

"Remember what?"

"I never for one second expected this. I am so sorry."

"Expected what?" I cried, exasperated.

"It isn't my place to tell you. You must see Loki, have him explain. I… I truly am sorry Calista."

"I guess I'll never know then." I murmured. "I refuse to talk to him, he's a monster." Thor bowed his head in disappointment, but accepted my wishes, and gave me one last hug, stroking the back of my head gently before allowing me to talk back inside.

* * *

Later on, as I sat in the lab, occasionally joining in with Tony and Bruce's conversations I noticed some more video footage from Loki's cage and curiosity got the better of me. I opened it only to find the the video feed had no sound this time, seemingly broken, but none the less, I watched.

It was Thor who entered the room of the cell this time and as he did, Loki looked up with a smirk. But with one look at Thor's forlorn face wiped the mile clean off. He said something, but I,being no lip reader, couldn't understand it. Thor's reply was apparently what he wanted to hear as Loki seemed to sigh in relief and a happy smile graced his features.

That however, was the time Thor added whatever else he was going to say and his features morphed into an expression of sad confusion before whatever it was dawned on him and his look turned to hurt and anger. Thor looked apologetic as he nodded once apologetically before leaving.

Loki looked one around the empty room before seeming to scream in rage before putting his head in his hands mournfully. That was when the video footage cut off again.


End file.
